The reality TV show to die for. Literally

by Kerry Drewery

  ‘He was my father too.’

  ‘Kind of. But you don’t seem exactly cut up about it now, do you?’

  ‘Come on, Patty. You know what he was like. You know what he was doing at the High Rises.’

  ‘If you’re going to call him your father, you can call me your mother.’

  ‘I remember my mother; she was a better woman than you could ever be.’

  ‘If you could remember her, you’d remember she was a whore!’

  ‘She slept with men for money so she could eat and so she could feed me – it was the only way we could survive. What’s your excuse?’

  Her slap stings his face and he gasps in shock.

  ‘Whatever he was doing,’ she hisses, ‘it doesn’t mean he deserved to die.’

  ‘An eye for an eye?’ he says, staring up to Patty in indignation, a red print of her hand across his cheek.

  ‘Yeah, an eye for an eye. She killed him, so she deserves to die herself.’

  ‘One rule for them, one rule for us, is it? Anyway, did she really kill him?’

  ‘Christ in heaven above, Isaac, are you as naive as you sound? You know who she is. She had every reason to want to hurt your father. Never thought she’d actually go through with it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘No, Mother.’ He grabs her round the wrist and she stops dead.

  ‘Call me Mother now you want something.’ She looks down to where he holds her. ‘Isaac, sweetie, don’t get hung up on this. I know it’s upsetting. I mean, I’m shocked, but your father, he was stupid. Some might say he had it coming. I just thought it’d be the mother not the daughter …’

  Holding her wrist up, he moves his face close to hers. ‘He ran her mother down,’ he whispers, ‘but that’s not what you’re talking about, is it? What do you know?’

  ‘Plenty of things, but none that are any of your business.’

  ‘Things to do with Martha?’ He lets go of her wrist. ‘I think we should talk.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she says, straightening her clothes and her hair. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Mother, this is important.’

  ‘So is lunch with my friends.’

  ‘More important than a talk with your son?’

  ‘I don’t have a son,’ she says. ‘And if you know what’s good for you, you better work out what side you’re on.’

  Martha

  ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ a voice says. ‘One of the ten commandments, also known as the Decalogue, which are …’

  The door to Martha’s cell opens and Eve steps inside.

  ‘ … found twice in the Hebrew bible … ’

  ‘Remember the camera,’ Martha whispers as she stands from the mattress on the floor, no bed frame, no chair.

  ‘ … first in Exodus … ’

  Eve nods. ‘What’s that voice?’ she says.

  ‘ … then in Deuteronomy … ’

  ‘Some kind of moralistic running commentary for the day,’ Martha says, her voice low and monotone. ‘There were word definitions at full blast all morning.’

  ‘ … some state that God inscribed … ’

  Eve frowns at her.

  ‘Like, the definitions of kill and murder,’ Martha adds. ‘Death, stuff like that.’

  ‘ … his ten commandments onto stone tablets … ’

  ‘Seems it’s moved to religious morals now,’ she continues. ‘You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve learnt.’

  ‘ … and given them to Moses … ’

  Martha slumps to the floor. Her face is haggard, bags under her eyes, her mouth lolls open as if it’s effort to control it. She nods. ‘You wouldn’t … No, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘… on Mount Sinai …’

  ‘It’ll move on to Islam next,’ she mutters. ‘Seems to be a cycle. Least it’s quieter than the word definition things.’

  ‘ … the Qur’an includes similar verses to these, which some scholars call … ’

  ‘See?’

  Eve nods and sits next to her. ‘Look at me instead,’ she says. ‘Try to block it out for a while. Listen to my voice.’

  Martha shuffles and turns to her. ‘Yeah,’ she says.

  ‘ … instructions, as … ’

  ‘This cell’s tiny,’ Eve breathes. ‘I’ve never been in one before.’

  Martha shrugs. ‘Don’t need much,’ she says.

  ‘It looks smaller than on the TV,’ Eve continues, ‘and the ceiling seems lower.’

  ‘It feels like a coffin,’ Martha says. ‘But it’s warmer than the last one so …’

  They sit on the mattress, their backs to the camera. Eve rests her bag next to her feet and unzips it.

  ‘ … found twice in the Qur’an … ’

  ‘It was the closest thing I could get to a tree,’ she whispers, and she takes out a small twig, barely the length of her hand, with leaves still attached that are golden yellow and ready to fall. ‘But it’s not very green.’

  Martha smiles. ‘I said that for you,’ she says. ‘It did make a difference.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Eve replies. ‘I should think they’ll take this off you, but …’ She shrugs.

  The voice continues but Martha rubs her fingers across the rough of the bark and the dry of the dying leaves, trying to distract herself.

  ‘I went to Gus’s house,’ Eve whispers.

  Martha glances to her. ‘You got the …?’

  Carefully Eve puts a finger to her lips and, barely noticeably, she nods. ‘I read everything,’ she breathes.

  ‘Even …?’

  ‘Your mum’s letter? Yes.’

  Eve takes a packet of biscuits from her bag, peels it open and places it in front of Martha, hidden from view of the camera.

  ‘Were you shocked?’

  ‘No,’ Eve whispers. ‘It all makes sense now. Were you shocked when you read it?’

  Martha takes a bite and chews, taking her time as she swallows and glances sideways to Eve. ‘I feel sorry for my mum.’

  Eve nods. ‘I understand that,’ she says. ‘Who else knows?’

  ‘Can’t be many or he wouldn’t have tried to keep it quiet.’

  ‘You think it’ll change things?’

  ‘Not by itself, no, but it’s more ammunition to make them listen. Well, listen to Isaac, anyway.’

  ‘You know the CCTV at the underpass was working the night your mother was run over?’ Eve asks.

  Martha turns to her. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You could prove he killed your mum.’

  ‘By itself that’s not enough to do anything either, though, is it?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘All it does is show I had the perfect motivation!’

  ‘Anger and revenge?’

  Martha nods.

  ‘Why didn’t you and Isaac think all this out properly beforehand?’

  ‘Huh. Y’see, you’re forgetting something fundamental.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That until Jackson turned up that night we had no way to do anything. We had the papers Isaac had stolen, and Mum’s letter, but there wasn’t anything we could do with them. Anybody of any influence wasn’t going to listen. No policeman would’ve touched it. No politician, no journalist. And even if they had listened, were interested or whatever, they couldn’t have done anything. His influence was too wide.

  ‘All I ever wanted was for truth and justice for Mum and Ollie, but together, me and Isaac, we realised we could do more, if only we could find a way.

  ‘I suppose it’s stupid – who are we to do anything? – it should be someone like you or Cicero. Not teenagers, but …’ She shrugs, wipes the biscuit crumbs from her lap and looks back to Eve. ‘Until Jackson fell to the ground with a hole in his head and the police cars came with their sirens and blue lights, and all that, we had no way to carry it out.

  ‘Suddenly there’s the body of one of the most famous men in the country at my feet, police on their way, likely m
edia too, and I know what to do. The plan, if you could call it a plan, was a couple words spoken between us in the few minutes it took for the police to arrive. Everything before that was just hope.’

  ‘Then why do it?’

  She leans in towards Eve and lowers her voice. ‘Because there comes a time when you have to choose apathy or action. I could’ve stepped away and gone back to the shadows and carried on living hand to mouth, watching the injustices mount up around me, thinking “what if I’d done this, or done that, there’s another like Mum, another like Ollie” or I could stand up tall and tell the world I’d had enough, as had so many, many others, and take the consequences and pray those consequences could change the future.’

  ‘But, Martha, by the time this comes out, whether at your final words, or if Isaac says something at the victim speech, people won’t suddenly feel sorry for you and vote for your innocence, and even if they did, it’d be far too late.’

  Martha huffs at her. ‘This isn’t about saving my life. If it was, I wouldn’t have pleaded guilty. It’s about something bigger. I will die tomorrow, but people will know the truth about Mum and Ollie, and about Jackson and all the stuff he was caught up in. And with it, I hope, will be a chance for a new justice to be born. A fairer one where people have their eyes open and aren’t led by publicity and media.’

  ‘You are certain that you want to die for such an uncertain hope?’

  ‘If I didn’t think it could at least start things, then what would the point of this be?’

  ‘In all my time here, Martha, not one person has pleaded guilty so freely and been so open to their own death. I don’t know what to make of you. I feel like I’ve failed you.’

  Martha stares at Eve for a moment. ‘Really?’ she whispers. ‘Not one person has pleaded guilty so freely?’

  Eve shakes her head and frowns.

  Martha leans in. ‘What about your husband?’ she whispers in Eve’s ear.

  Eve’s breathing stalls.

  ‘We all know in the Rises,’ Martha continues. ‘He didn’t kill that man, you did. It was self-defence, but I’m betting he took the blame so you could live, so you could be there for Max.’

  ‘Martha, nobody … Max doesn’t … I told Jim not to … I didn’t …’

  ‘Doesn’t even Cicero know?’

  She shakes her head again.

  ‘I know that’s why you understand me and I know you understand why I’m doing this.’

  The door behind them opens again. Eve pushes the biscuits under the mattress and grabs her bag.

  ‘Time to go, Mrs Stanton,’ the guard says.

  The two women stand up.

  ‘I won’t be able to see you again,’ Eve whispers.

  ‘What happens tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Eve takes her hand. ‘You’ll spend the day in Cell 7. It’s bigger than this. Have you seen it on the television? On the programme?’

  ‘I saw it when Ollie was executed … but I don’t remember.’

  ‘I said it’s time to go,’ the guard says.

  ‘The chair is in there too.’

  ‘The chair? The chair that … where I’ll …’ Martha’s voice cracks.

  Eve nods.

  Martha takes a tentative step towards her. For a second she pauses, then she closes her eyes and drops her head into her hands.

  ‘I’m scared,’ she whispers.

  Gently Eve takes Martha’s hands away from her face. ‘I’ll never forget you,’ she says, her eyes filling.

  Martha’s breath judders in, her body trembling as panic threatens her and she gulps and gulps at the air to steady herself.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Eve whispers, ‘close your eyes and imagine the tree in the breeze. Be the bird that sits in it, then let yourself fly away.’

  Martha leans towards her. ‘Tell Isaac … tell him I’m sorry … tell him … I love him.’

  The guard pulls Eve away and tears flood down her cheeks.

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ she shouts as she’s dragged away. ‘I promise. I’ll tell him.’

  The door slams and inside Martha collapses onto the mattress. She turns away from the camera and pulls the blanket around her.

  ‘Be with me, Isaac,’ she breathes, and she closes her eyes. ‘Hold me, stop me from feeling so alone.’

  In her imagination he’s behind her and his arms are around her. He’s whispering in her ear that he loves her and they will always be together.

  Death is Justice

  Already on air for some hours. The lights are low. In shadow, Kristina sits in her usual seat at the end of the long desk, Joshua to her side. To the right the screen shows Martha lying on the mattress with her back to the camera.

  The cell seems bigger, cleaner, brighter, whiter. The mattress looks thicker, the blankets softer and the untouched food on the tray more appetising.

  KRISTINA: This is precisely why it was necessary to take away the post of designated counsellor. The problem, you see, with human interaction is feelings and emotions can sway judgements.

  JOSHUA: It does seem that Counsellor Stanton has developed something of an attachment for our accused.

  KRISTINA: Indeed, and it’s simply not right. One needs to keep a professional distance. This woman has had sympathy with the girl since Cell 1.

  JOSHUA: I wonder though, Kristina, viewers, audience, if this is a direct influence from her own tragic experiences.

  KRISTINA: Hardly tragic!

  Joshua glances briefly at Kristina.

  JOSHUA (laughing): Well … I imagine your husband being executed is pretty high up on the stress-o-meter, Kristina!

  He turns to the audience and they laugh with him.

  JOSHUA: It was an infamous case. Jim Stanton, her husband, was executed for killing a man he claimed was attacking him. He said he acted in self-defence and the killing was accidental. It was a change in public opinion we’ve not seen the like of before or since: 92% voting not guilty until the evening of Cell 6, when a police document leaked to the newspapers showed that the man died from a blow to the back of the head – so not self-defence but a cowardly attack.

  KRISTINA: You certainly remember your facts, Josh!

  JOSHUA (smiling): Well, come now, Kristina, it’s all in my new book, don’t you know?

  He holds up a hardback book with the title – What They Deserve? – emblazoned across it, and opens the cover to his photograph on the inside.

  JOSHUA: With a lovely photo of myself.

  He winks and a murmur breezes over the audience.

  JOSHUA: But on a serious note, it examines what we as a public think a criminal should suffer for their crimes.

  KRISTINA: Death, it seems.

  JOSHUA: In many cases, it does, but not in all. It’s interesting to see that the old adage of ‘an eye for an eye’ still resonates deeply with many moralistic people. The saying that inspired the law, this company and our logo. A saying that is found in the Bible, but often misinterpreted as literally meaning –

  KRISTINA: Thank you, Joshua, but if I can just stop you there before we launch too deeply into opinion.

  The camera zooms in on her.

  KRISTINA: As always for our Cell 6 prisoners we’re taking calls from you, the voting public, hearing your opinions on this case. But before we do, let’s take another look at what makes this case so important and fascinating for so many, graciously worded by our wonderful PM.

  She smiles to the camera, which turns towards the screen on the right, filled by an image of Lady Justice on top of the Old Bailey, looking over the City with her arms outstretched, her double-edged sword high in one, her scales balancing in the other.

  A caption slides in from the right: ‘Culpae poenae par esto’.

  Underneath the translation appears: ‘let the punishment fit the crime’.

  Another appears – ‘Bonis nocet quisquis malis pepercit’ – with its translation: ‘whoever spares the bad injures the good’.

  PM VOICEOVER: Our laws and morals have been our
compass for many years and have guided us through wars, uprisings, civil unrest, recessions and religious turmoil, ensuring that even when we are put to the test, we do what is right for the people of our nation.

  The screen changes, focusing down a long, gloomy corridor with closed metal doors along it and a dim light above. Bars slam across in front of the camera; a deep clanging resonates.

  PM VOICEOVER: Those who fall foul of this moral standing will feel the full weight of the law.

  The camera pulls back along the corridor, light seeping through until the screen is nothing but bright white.

  PM VOICEOVER: Six days ago a crime was committed that has shocked our nation to the core.

  Photographs of Jackson flick over the screen: a skinny boy of six or seven, sitting in the gutter near the High Rises, dirt on his face, a piece of bread clasped in his hands. Another of him as a young teenager, skinny jeans and a sneer; a cigarette between his fingers as a police officer stands in front of him. Another and he’s around eighteen, his arm hanging around a slim woman with long hair, both with a bottle of wine in their hands.

  PM VOICEOVER: Jackson Paige could have stayed like this, but he chose not to. He grew up in the most terrible circumstances imaginable, but worked to take himself out of squalor and live the life he truly deserved.

  The picture changes again. A shot of him as a twenty-something man, a battered suitcase in his hand and a nervous grin as he waves to a camera.

  PM VOICEOVER: First coming to the public’s attention as he entered into television’s ground-breaking reality TV show – Them Versus Us – pitching some of the country’s richest against the poorest, his charm put him in our hearts and he not only walked away with well over a million pounds in prize money …

  On the screen an ebullient Jackson stands with flowers around his neck, a spewing Champagne bottle and a smiling young woman.

  PM VOICEOVER:… but also his soon to be wife, young socialite Patty West.

  A wedding photograph on the front cover of Celebrity Goss! magazine appears.

  PM VOICEOVER: Together they dominated the pages of celebrity magazines, parties of the rich and famous, were frequent chat show guests, made countless public appearances, and he became a major figure for many leading charities as she supported his growing career and importance. They typified the perfect couple.